Although Katz v United States dispensed with the requirement of an actual physical
trespass to trigger the Fourth Amendment, is a physical trespass always an intrusion on a
person's reasonable expectation of privacy?
A physical trespass is not always an intrusion on a person's reasonable expectation of
privacy. In Lee V. United States (1952), government informants deceptively interrogated
criminal suspects and simultaneously transmitted the conversations to other government
agents via electrical transmitters resulting in the "petitioner...[being] convicted on a two-
count indictment, one charging the substantive offense of selling a pound of opium..., and
the other conspiring to sell the opium" (
Lee v. United States
).
The petitioner contends that
"this evidence should have been excluded because the manner in which it was obtained
violates...the search-and-seizure provision "(
Lee v. United States
). The petitioner believed
that the unknowing use of a recording device,
while having what he thought to be, a
private conversation in his place of business was a violation of his reasonable expectation
of privacy. However, it was concluded that
the government informant, Chin Poy, "entered
a place of business with the consent, if not by the implied invitation, of the petitioner" (
Lee
v. United States
). Although the petitioner did not know that Boy was wearing a wire while
he made incriminating statements, it was still admissible in court because "a fourth
Amendment violation require[s] an actual physical examination of one's person, papers,
physical effects, or home" (
Olmstead v. United States (1928).
"On this view, the
government's use of [their informant and recording devices]
was not a search because it
did not involve a trespass on [the petitioners'] property and because the government had
not seized any of his physical papers or effects"(
Olmstead v. United States (1928).
